thelesterlee
NBA players I want to talk about this week is a new weekly column where we go through some guys in the league who I’m strangely obsessed over at this current moment.
1. Jalen Brunson
I just want to talk about this one play from New York’s victory over the Miami Heat:
JALEN BRUNSON IS A BADDD MAN!! 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/VmoXqXV9rr
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) January 27, 2024
Superstar.
Jalen Brunson missed out on being a starter for the All-Star game. He’ll most likely not be voted onto an All-NBA team either.
As I’m writing this, Brunson is 12th in scoring with 26.8 points a game, ahead of Anthony Edwards, Damian Lillard and Paul George. He had nine 30-point games in January including a 41-point thunderstorm on the Wizards.
He’s shooting 42% from 3, ahead of Steph Curry and James Harden. He’s a player I don’t even consider as a top playmaker and his 6.5 assists a game is still better than guys like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis and Steph again.
If you want to get into advanced stats, Jalen Brunson ranks 7th in offensive win shares ahead of Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. And he’s 9th in VORP ahead of Anthony Davis and Jayson Tatum.
And if you watch the Knicks play, it is clear as shit he is singlehandedly willing this team that’s currently sitting in the 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and they’re only one week of Doc Rivers Doc Riversing the Bucks to hell and New York taking over as the 2nd best team in the entire conference.
Yet, there is this strange feeling that people are unable to recognize how great of a basketball player he is. He’s even proven his greatness in the playoffs last year averaging over 30 points in the second-round series against the Miami Heat.
There are still Knicks fans who would rather have Donovan Mitchell even though Jalen Brunson is an astronomically better defensive player capable of drawing charges and forcing turnovers in a way Mitchell has never been super interested in trying and Brunson has eliminated Donovan from the playoffs in back-to-back years and in two different conferences.
At the end of the day, most people are followers. I don’t think it comes down to simply watching games because I know for a fact these people on ESPN have watched far more Knicks games than Oklahoma City games yet they’ve had no problem anointing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as one of the best players in the NBA because someone said it first.
It only takes one person to declare a player great for that to just become the consensus. I will never understand Evan Mobley winning first-team All-Defense when he looked like it was his first time on a basketball court against the Knicks in the 2023 first round. Someone said Mobley was a great defender and it just became a universal fact.
It probably has a lot to do with where they were drafted. Shai and Mobley were top picks. Jalen Brunson was a second-rounder so he needs to rattle off like, 3 rings before he’s treated the way he deserves.
As soon as someone like Bill Simmons or Zach Lowe decides to call Jalen Brunson a Top 10 player, all of these losers will randomly just parrot the same take and gaslight any of us who remember how badly they wanted to dismiss him. I’m going to punch a hole in my wall.
2. Ben Simmons
On Monday night, Ben Simmons played his first NBA game since November 6th. Simmons checked in halfway through the first quarter against the Jazz and recorded 6 assists in 4 minutes.
To this day, I hate the way he was treated when the Sixers lost to the Atlanta Hawks in the 2021 second round as if he was solely responsible for the team’s downfall. Especially after a game like this one on Monday where had 10 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds in 18 minutes. The Nets won by 33. I don’t think it’s a lucky coincidence Brooklyn got back one of the best playmakers and defenders in the NBA and suddenly beat the dog shit out of the Jazz.
Ben Simmons is out for Nets-Suns after suffering a knee contusion the night before
Simmons made his debut Monday night after missing two months pic.twitter.com/3CIdV8uS5P
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 31, 2024
And now he’s immediately out once again with a knee injury after needing months off to get his back right.
I’ve always enjoyed Ben Simmons’s game. He has unbelievable court vision and anticipation combined with true unselfishness and willingness to make others look like the star while he does all the dirty work of playing defense, getting deflections, leading the fastbreak and finding his teammates in transition.
But we turned his unselfish play into a flaw in his character and instead of embracing the facets of the game he excels in, we’ve bashed him for not wanting to be Michael Jordan taking contested turn-around jumpers.
There are so many players in the NBA who do significantly less on a basketball court than Simmons yet none of them have faced the venom of both the media and the fans the way Simmons has. The fuck is David Roddy doing in Memphis? There are true bums in the NBA and we spit at Ben Simmons like he’s a total loser.
And now, his body is betraying him. He’s a 7-footer with a bad back. We watched Dwight Howard go from the most dominant player in the league to a scrub after getting back surgery in 2012.
Ben Simmons could’ve been one of the biggest stars in the NBA. He even hides his Australian accent so he can pretend to be American. It’s not working in Brooklyn.
BUT *whispers* I think Ben Simmons coming off the bench in New York to run the second unit and play elite defense would be championship parades down Broadway.
3. Austin Reeves
The Lakers and Warriors had an overtime thriller for rivalry week. The Lakers won 145-144. LeBron dropped 36 points, 20 rebounds and 12 assists. Steph Curry scored 46. The old dudes were running the YMCA gym.
Last season, the Lakers made the Western Conference Finals and the organization convinced themselves the team was good enough to simply run it back the next season even though they beat a young, unfocused Grizzlies team and the same Golden State Warriors that are 4 games below .500 right now before they were SWEPT by the Denver Nuggets.
And now this season, the Lakers are slapboxing with the Utah Jazz to get into the play-in game.
LeBron was supposed to be on a minutes restriction as Anthony Davis and Austin Reeves handled more of the scoring responsibility. And while Anthony Davis has maintained that high level of play from the 2023 playoffs, Austin Reeves has been wildly miscast as the third star of the Los Angeles Lakers. Reeves’s shooting percentages have plummeted and he is wildly inconsistent from game to game.
I know it’s unfair to judge a player’s defense on Steph Curry. No one looks great chasing Curry around the 3-point line. But man, Reeves looked suuuuuper unathletic out there. Austin Reeves has been miscast as a third star when in reality he should be coming off the bench like Jordan Clarkson or dominating the G-League. Shanghai Sharks are looking for a ballhandler.
4. Cam Whitmore
I loved Cam Whitmore but perhaps the Knicks have inadvertently turned me into a Villanova Wildcat stan. But my guy was a monster with all the tools to be an NBA star. Next level athleticism and the ability to play lockdown defense if he chooses.
But for some reason I still haven’t been able to figure out, Whitmore went from a guaranteed Top 5 pick to falling to no. 20 to the Houston Rockets. Not sure what came up in his medical evaluations because Whitmore looks healthy as hell right now.
Cam Whitmore is special. 🔥
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) February 1, 2024
This is the healthiest man in the NBA.
Over his last 4 games, Whitmore is averaging 20 points. I’m ready to say he deserves far more playing time. I understand the importance of Dillon Brooks for this young team. He sets the tone every night, specifically on the defensive side of the ball. Plus, the Rockets are paying him far too much money to be an asshole sulking on the bench.
So I’m looking at Jabari Smith with a side-eye. Cam Whitmore is becoming too impactful for his little 18 minutes a night. Someone is coming for your job, Jabari. DO SOMETHING. FIGHT BACK.
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